


From Comedy to Character Development

by emthecat



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Derek "Nursey" Nurse is Unchill, It started out as fluff, M/M, some anxiety type behaviours, then it wasn't fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-26 03:18:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9859760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emthecat/pseuds/emthecat
Summary: “It’s not what it looks like, really!”“It looks like Nursey’s head is stuck in-between the posts of the stairs…”“Oh, then it’s exactly what it looks like.”(For the prompt: "It's not what it looks like, really!" with nurseydex.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt: "It's not what it looks like, really!" with nurseydex.
> 
> I swear this started out as pure fluff and then it took a turn for the angsty and it's still pretty light honestly. I figured Nursey needed some character development considering the last fic I wrote was super heavily based on our friend William Poindexter. I had so much fun writing it though, even with the mild angst that ensued.

“It’s not what it looks like, really!”

“It looks like Nursey’s head is stuck in-between the posts of the stairs…”

“Oh, then it’s exactly what it looks like.”

Earlier That Day…

Derek Nurse was a klutz. It wasn’t exactly something he could deny considering within the last week he had fallen up the stairs, smacked himself in the face with a plate, and nearly pulled off Chowder’s pants when he tripped into him. It was just something he embraced, even when someone threatened to safely secure him up in bubble wrap until he graduated to ensure his game wouldn’t suffer. There was a common trait between all these instances however, that somehow no one had yet noticed. Every time Derek’s body betrayed him, be it tripping, injury, or a complete wipeout, William Poindexter had been shirtless.

Currently he was lounging in the Haus on the forbidden couch doing readings for his British Literature class when Dex had walked in covered head to toe in mud. “Yo, dude, what happened to you?” Nursey could tell, even though most of Dex’s face was coated in drying brown patches, that Dex was a very angry shade of red.

“The fuckin’ Lax Bros just happened, THEY LITERALLY JUST DROPPED A BUCKET OF MUD OUT OF A WINDOW WHEN I WALKED BY. I HAVE A MIDTERM IN AN HOUR AND I CAN’T GO BACK TO MY DORM RIGHT NOW BECAUSE MY ROOMMATE IS GETTING LAID AND-“

Nursey decided to interrupt Dex before he somehow managed to get redder and possibly explode, “Dude, go take a shower in Chow’s bathroom. Both him and Bitty are out in class right now and I don’t think they’d fault you for needing one.”

Nursey settled back into the couch and continued his readings, the sounds of a slighty less angry Dex showering in the background. Nursey tried to ignore the fact that Dex was very naked right above him, and focus on the probably queer readings he was trying to take notes on. He finally heard the shower go off, and figured that he’d try to lighten Dex’s mood before he left for his midterm. It wasn’t like Nursey was a total asshole and wanted Dex to go off to his midterm still seething, that wouldn’t help anyone. Nursey’s plan was genius, he was convinced it was genius anyway, until it became obvious it wasn’t.

In this genius plan, Nursey had planned to wait at the bottom of the stairs with his head near the poles that attached the railing to the stairs. He was going to wait there with a creepy look on his face until Dex noticed him and would die laughing because Derek Nurse was hilariousTM. In retrospect, none of the above was accurate because Nursey was not funny, nor was he careful and those two concepts were a large dependent in his plan. He heard Dex begin to descend the stairs, and he got his face ready perching his head semi-wedged into the bars on the stair to be sure he wouldn’t be missed. What Nursey was not expecting, however, was Dex, whose only coverage was a very small towel, to be so easily spooked. When Dex saw Derek, he screamed.

“wh-AH FUCKING HELL”

In response to Dex’s yelp, and the severe towel slippage that had occurred, Derek Nurse’s head slipped inbetween the bars of the railing and got stuck there. Dex began reaming Nursey out, his frustration showing based on his returned to red face.

“-AND ANOTHER THING WHY DID YOU THINK THAT WAS A GOOD IDEA I COULD’VE FALLEN DOWN THE STAIRS-“

As Dex screamed Nursey discreetly tried to pull his head out from between the bars, not realizing this was going to be more difficult than he anticipated. It wasn’t until he made a very squeaky noise of frustration that Dex stopped screaming and realized where Derek was and why he hadn’t moved yet.

“Are you stuck?”

“No… I just haven’t quite figured out how to remove my head”

“So you’re stuck.”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, but the unthinkable then happened. Dex’s face went red again but instead of yelling, this time he was laughing- no sorry he was full on chortling.

“H-HOLY SHI-IT, YOU-YOUR HEAD IS STUCK, OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS- ”

And then it hit Dex, that Derek was stuck and he was the only one in the house to help him get unstuck. And it seemed that Derek was not handling it well based on the heavy breathing that had started up during his laughter. Oh, well that wasn’t good.

“Nurse, are you okay?”, Dex realized his question was probably pretty lame considering the state Nursey had already managed to put himself in within the last minute and a half. The lack of response from Nursey other than a semi-shake of his head indicated he probably should try to do something before this got worse. He shot off a quick text to Bitty, (SOS, Come back to Haus ASAP please!!!) and then turned back to his pale-faced teammate. “Okay, Nurse, breathe please. I don’t really know what I’m doing in this situation, but I know you need to breathe to live so please please do that… uh count to 7 while you breathe in and 5 while you breathe out, there you go, okay.”

As Dex worked to reassure Nurse, his phone pinged and Bitty had indicated he’d be back in 10 minutes and to just stay put. Dex realized Bitty didn’t understand how impossible it would be to move, so he turned back to Derek who appeared to be calming down slightly with the change in breathing, colour returning to his face. Finally in a shaky voice, Nursey was able to say something.

“Can you hold my hand?”

Dex figured he wasn’t really in the place to argue, so he took Nursey’s hand and began to stroke it with his thumb. He decided that the best way to help Nursey was to distract him from the situation until Bitty arrived. So Dex rambled, told Nursey about the time his cousin had superglued himself to the toilet in an attempt to prank his sister. He noticed that Nursey began to calm down while he spoke, small reactions to avoid jostling his head’s position between the bars. He realized he was still holding Nursey’s hand, he also realized he kind of didn’t want to let go. The truth was, Nursey and Dex didn’t know how to deal with the tension between them but they weren’t oblivious to why it existed. They had started out rough, constant fighting and screaming but it had turned from aggression to light-hearted chirping and realistically some of their chirps were so mild they were essentially flirting. The team had picked up on it, but they all realized it wasn’t their place to say anything- Dex and Nursey would figure it out themselves sometime or another.

Dex and Nursey didn’t realize how silent they had been until they heard a car rush by outside the Haus, both thinking about things, not caring that Dex’s story had just trailed off. They just kind of looked at each other, and they watched each other, neither expecting anything from the other. Slowly, Dex moved closer to Nursey. The situation wasn’t exactly appropriate for anything Dex had in mind, but he hadn’t really considered that when he moved. He realized Nursey couldn’t really move anywhere so he watched, hoping he wouldn’t push any boundaries and half-expecting Nurse to start wiggling away from him. But he didn’t, Nursey just watched him with his eyes wide as they moved closer until there was a loud bang and Dex jumped two feet backward while Nursey whacked his head off the rail in shock. He turned to see Bitty staring with a look of shock on his face, he didn’t know what to do but he was ready to bullshit something, “It’s not what it looks like, Bits, really!”

“It looks like Nursey’s head is stuck in-between the posts of the stairs…”

“Oh, then it’s exactly what it looks like”, Dex giggled nervously to himself as Bitty went into the kitchen muttering under his breath about wasting butter and klutzy frogs. It wasn’t like he didn’t want Bitty to know what was about to happen, he just didn’t want Bitty to know before Dex knew what was going on. He saw Derek getting pale again, and wasn’t entirely sure whether it was from the stairs, Bitty, or him- but he figured any of the above probably weren’t good. He took Derek’s hand again, rubbing his thumb in circles while Bitty came back with a couple sticks of butter and a look severely lacking in shock considering the situation. After a few minutes of buttering Derek’s face, and much more muttering, Derek was finally freed from the stairs.

“I don’t know how y’all managed this, but I also don’t know why you didn’t just take out the bars he was stuck between, considering you did that last week to fix a cracked pole Dex.”

Dex realized that would have worked really well, unfortunately well, but he also didn’t think it was his place to reveal to Bitty he was busy trying to calm Derek down. So he just kind of shrugged and indicated he hadn’t really though the situation through, then he realized the time and the whole reason he ended up here and the fact that he was still in a towel (which Bitty thankfully hadn’t mentioned). He grabbed his bag, moved to the bathroom, changed into his back up gym clothes, and ran off leaving Nursey with Bitty. Nursey opened his mouth to say something, he wasn’t really sure what to say at this point, but Bitty cut him off.

“I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if I want to know, but for heaven’s sakes y’all need to have a talk and I’m buying you a bubble to live in, hmph.”

Nursey decided Bitty was right, he needed to talk to Dex and he probably needed to finish the conversation they started earlier- especially if it meant what he thought earlier meant.

***

Dex’s midterm had gone well, he couldn’t complain, but he was exhausted after the afternoon he’d had. He was headed back to his dorm to finally get some rest until he noticed a very quiet Derek Nurse sitting outside the door of his room. His roommate was clearly out because otherwise Derek would’ve been waiting inside, so he figured he had a good enough reason to invite him in and watch Netflix. Other than nod at Dex Nursey hadn’t said anything which wasn’t unusual, but his mood seemed to be even more subdued than normal. Once they settled onto his bed, laptop set up on a chair across from them so they could sit widthwise and stretch out more, Derek finally spoke up.

“Thanks for uh, not walking away earlier, or whatever”

It was still quieter than Dex was used to hearing from Derek, and he seemed almost uncomfortable. Dex’s reply didn’t seem to make him anymore comfortable though.

“Dude, I wouldn’t have left you in that situation unless my midterm had been starting in the next few minutes… and even then I probably would’ve waited until Bitty showed up.”

Derek seemed to be trying to take up as little space as possible, a 6”2 hockey player curled into a ball not passing for taking up little space, but nonetheless trying. Dex shifted closer to him, taking another chance in his actions, and covered Derek’s hand with his. Neither one looked at the other as the show in the background continued to play on. This continued for a few minutes until Dex finally found his voice again.

“I- uh- wanted you to feel better… you looked… not okay?”

Nursey let out a very shaky sigh, Dex finally turned to look at Nursey and saw that there were tears running down his face. Something inside of Dex panicked slightly, he didn’t like this, had he caused this? Nursey still wasn’t look at him, so Dex lightly put his hand on Derek’s face and turned him to face Dex’s face. Nursey continued to look everywhere but at him, so Dex waited. Finally Nursey spoke.

 

“Someone shoved me into a locker in middle school, and I got stuck. It- that situation… reminded me so much of that,” he sighed heavily.

“The difference was that last time, someone I cared about very much didn’t stick around. They ran, and they never came back. I was there for almost an hour before someone finally did something. I transferred to Andover soon after that, my parents appalled that someone had managed to do that to me and get away with it.”

At this point, Dex felt heavy. He knew that Nursey had just hinted at the unspoken feelings they shared, and he was angry that Nursey had gone through all that but neither of those emotions would help Nursey. So he waited some more, hopefully silently urging Nursey to continue, which he did.

“I know, it wasn’t the same thing. It wasn’t a locker, and I wasn’t stuck the same way, and I know if you’d left someone would’ve come along. But in that moment, you were laughing and I know it wasn’t mean but like… I just couldn’t figure out what to do about any of it. Dex, I-“

Nursey stopped speaking suddenly, like he wasn’t sure he knew how or what to say next. So Dex spoke instead.

“Nursey, Derek, I really care about you. I want to be there for you in every situation, even if it means sitting with for days you while your head is stuck in the railing on the stairs. I want to protect you even if it means getting hurt myself. I want… you, basically just you.”

Dex wrapped his arm around Derek, slowly so as to allow him space if he chose to wiggle away, and when Derek settled up against him he felt good and Derek in turn felt safer than he ever had before. With a light but hesitant kiss to Derek’s forehead, the two hockey players finally settled into each other knowing that they had all the time in the world to talk about things- but right then? 

Right then they both just wanted to feel the others' presence beside them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. Any feedback at all is super awesome, and if you want to find me on the interweb you can find my tumblr [here](http://www.dexs-freckles.tumblr.com)! I take prompts/requests, and will do my absolute best to do them justice :)))))


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